Professional Development – Becoming a Master

Day of Data Baton Rouge 2026 – back home

admin July 19, 2026 0 Comments

When I was fortunate enough to be chosen to speak at #DayofDataBR, and I saw that tickets to New Orleans were quite a bit cheaper, I took the opportunity to fly there first. Louis Armstrong has always been an idol of mine, as I was growing up as a wannabe jazz piano player. I would listen to him along with some of the other influences from that era to understand the style. I'm glad I was able to...

Azure Storage – Day of Data Baton Rouge – 18 Jul 2026

admin July 10, 2026 0 Comments

You did everything right. You moved SQL Server to Azure, you paid for premium storage, you sized the VM generously. And it's still... slow. Your users are grumbling, your dashboards look fine on paper, and you're starting to wonder if the cloud was oversold. Here's the uncomfortable truth I've been sharing on stages this year: in Azure, you're paying for a service, and Microsoft is only going to...

Moving Forward

admin February 10, 2025 0 Comments

As I have told many people, I was REALLY busy between the last week of October and through Christmas. All good stuff, all busy. January was just the normal busy, but I used the time to make lists. Lists are good. You get immediate organization, you can check off items, and you can track your progress. Yes, this is the typical whiny post from someone who makes a blog and then ignores it for...

Planning for your own in-person Data Conference – Pt 1

Michael Wall November 30, 2023 0 Comments

SQL Saturday Oregon and SW Washington 2023 is in the books and I hope everyone had a good time. As always, it was fantastic to see many people from the #SQLFamily. As always, I was running around like a chicken with my head cutoff due to many issues including coffee.... I expect that. It's hard to manage any size of group, and there will always be issues, especially when people are involved. We...

Maintaining a Balance

Michael Wall August 13, 2023 0 Comments

I'm not sure how some people manage to do it. It's been a stressful year between balancing my job, my family obligations, my health, my Lodge, my Data User Group, and having a little bit of fun for myself. Luckily I work with some really good people who are more than capable of getting things done. That being said, there are also a lot of people who just don't do anything unless pressed! But...I...

#NewStarNovember – Being a Mentor

Michael Wall December 01, 2022 0 Comments

As always, thank you to Ben for his continued positive influence on the data community and the world at large. Let's hope he likes my post! What got you into Speaking? I was fortunate enough to be near an active UG, originally the Oregon SQL UG based in Portland, OR. After discovering my first SQL Saturday in 2011, I became an active volunteer in 2015 and slowly started speaking. I had no idea...

Being a Speaker – PASS Summit 2022 (yay!)

Michael Wall October 10, 2022 0 Comments

I was once again honored by the session evaluation team for PASS Summit to be chosen to speak this year at Seattle. I'm super excited as I will be doing my Professional Development presentation on Becoming a Master! There's still plenty of time to sign up for Summit, but hurry up as it's only going to get more expensive and harder to find lodging. You can sign up right here: PASS Data Community...

The Power of Networking

Michael Wall September 18, 2022 0 Comments

Here I am, finally fulfilling a dream started back when I was 14 to see Europe. In my Freshman German class, I paid a small amount of money to have some penpals around the world. I remember I had a German girl, a French girl, and an Australian girl that lived in Adelaide. She and I kept in touch through college and I still have a cassette tape she sent me. I've described this trip as being a...

Taking Count

Michael Wall July 08, 2021 0 Comments

I'm not sure, but maybe the pandemic has finally caught up with me, but when I go to bed at night, I'm tired! At the beginning of the pandemic, I was fortunate enough to have been hired on by Pragmatic Works, and then my department was sold to 3Cloud! All of the excitement of working for two great companies plus normal life activities really insulated me from dealing with the pandemic. Sure,...

Happy DBA Day!

Michael Wall July 03, 2020 0 Comments

Today is International DBA Appreciation Day! Go hug your local DBA (if they'll let you!) There have been many articles about the death of the DBA, the evolution of the DBA, how to feed a DBA, etc. Rob Sewell has posted on the many meanings of the DBA acronym, and let us not forget that it also means "Doing Business As" to the greater population! So what kind of a business are we doing? In my...